INFECTED (Click Your Poison)

by James Schannep

  Both of you try to catch your breath as you ride down to safety in the elevator.

  “I’ve been bitten,” Deleon says. “I just need you to get me back to my apartment so I can administer the cure.” He sees your look. “I know, it’s not finished yet, but I think I can stave off the infection.” He begins applying pressure and wrapping his wound. “Please, I need your help.”

  • He might be the only chance mankind has. “All right, but if this doesn’t work, you’re on your own.”

  • Or you might be his first victim. “I’ll drop you off at home, but then I’m getting as far away from this accursed city as I can.”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Slug It Out

  Lucas slashes at the first ghoul to make it to the top, then slides out of the way and makes room for you and your shotgun. “Let me know when you need to reload,” he says. You nod and start down the stairs with your shotgun raised. Rosie already picks off those filing their way up, leaning over the edge and expertly opening their skulls as if she were a surgeon and her rifle a scalpel.

  You blast the first zombie in the face, completely obliterating its head and sending the limp body tumbling backward down the stairs. With five more downed ghouls, you’ve blown your load, and a dull click signals it’s time for a refill. Lucas Tesshu steps forward to fill the void, slashing with such deft quickness you have to hurry to keep up.

  The jeep’s up ahead, but the three of you fight well enough, you should be able to make it to the next building. Lucas and Rosie each nod for you to continue. So, which way?

  • The terminal.

  • The hangar.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  The Social Elite

  You are a member of the one percent, the best the world has to offer. You know the schmuck who said “Money can’t buy happiness” was probably poor. You’ve been elevated above everyone else, either through your own hard work, by birth, luck or… a little of each. And now you can finally make time to give back—by gracing the world with your presence for eternity.

  You’re resting quietly in your mansion, contemplating how to spend your eons, vaguely wishing Gilgazyme ® had come out last year, when your personal assistant arrives with a package. The package. She leaves it on your 16th-century escritoire, right next to the tray with today’s civet coffee. It briefly enters your mind that this is the closest Stacy will ever come to blessed immortality. And she probably didn’t even know it crossed her hands.

  You thank her and she leaves. With deliberate care you open the package. It’s a nondescript cardboard box filled with packing peanuts. From within, you pull a long and slender tube about the size of a wine bottle without a neck. The metal is cool to the touch. A white business card inside the box reads simply: “Welcome to the rest of your life. See you in the future, PHOENIX & DELEON.”

  Back to the tube—you unscrew the top and it hisses back at you in response. Along with the pressure coming out of the canister, wisps of white smoke float up toward you. Suspended in the middle of the carriage is none other than the Gilgazyme ® inhaler. It gives when you tug on it, and now you hold the thing in the palm of your hand. It’s heavier than you expected—and for what you paid for it, it’s probably worth a thousand times its weight in gold.

  The inhaler is minimally decorated; no words, only the symbol of infinity, ∞, repeated and interlocking like chain mail in shining silver décor around its light blue slender body. Over the mouthpiece is a red cap labeled, “Remove before use.”

  Without hesitation, you pop the cap and suck down the cool solution from within. As you depress the injector, the formula forces itself into your throat and lungs. You can’t tell if it’s liquid or gas, but it coats your esophagus in a viscous embrace. The effervescent tingling spreads throughout your body and eventually dissipates altogether.

  You don’t feel any differently. But, you realize, that’s sort of the point. You’ll never be any different. Tomorrow and all the rest of your days will feel the same as this day. No more will you age. Your body won’t decay and deteriorate like everyone else. You’ll never die.

  Unless you get hit by a car or contract a terminal illness. But that’s not a fun thought. So how about instead of sitting at home, entertaining notions of hypochondria, you throw the party of never-ending lifetime? You’re immortal, time to live like a god!

  Now then, where should you have Stacy invite your family, friends, coworkers, and anyone else who might envy your newfound longevity?

  • “Hmm, first day of the rest of my life? Vegas, baby. Private jet and penthouse suite for the win.”

  • “You know what would be nice? Just a small get-together. On my yacht. Do you have any idea how much tail I’m gonna get as an immortal?”

  • “Get my plane and entourage prepped. I hear Paris is quite nice when you’re ageless.”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  So Full You Could Burst

  Once the siren song of the mega-obese, the all-you-can-eat buffet is now host to its final promotion: Zombie Thursday. You approach the feeding trough and it’s immediately apparent from the influx of immortals, the place is in a state of pandemonium normally reserved for Mother’s Day brunch. The scooter-bound flee like rats from a sinking ship and yet others—gelatinous mountains—rush in to fill their handicapable vans with prime rib and peach cobbler.

  For you, it’s certainly all-you-can-eat, but supplies are limited. Like a Paleolithic tribe, you bring down a mammoth with the help of a few other hunters. This catch should last you through half of winter, but you have no concept of moderation. You down as much blubber as your gullet will take… and there is a limit.

  You don’t feel pain in the same way as mortals, and yet you’re aware that your stomach and intestines are expanding to their tensile boundaries. Something’s going to give soon. You’ve seen the other gods and goddesses in the advanced stages of over-eating: stomachs distended from tissue failure, digestive systems ruptured and abdominal cavities filled with flesh and fluid. Then, once the body’s extra storage space is maxed out, the over-pressurized bellies burst and newly consumed victims simply spill out onto the street. Stay young and beautiful forever with Gilgazyme ®.

  There’s a loud gurgling from within, loud enough to drown out your moan. Your backed-up digestive system groans like an exhausted engine—and then it happens. You shit yourself. Luckily for you, the bone fragments, scraps of clothing, chunks of scalp and hair didn’t put any serious clogs in your plumbing, and gravity does its job.

  Like a pigeon in mid-flight, this process happens without your consent, and to all outward appearances, it’s as if you didn’t notice either. You just keep filling the top with new food while the old drops out below. Much like the eatery’s former patrons.

  But soon Zombie Thursday is over, the pantheon disperses, and it’s time to wander once more.

  • Wander.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Staff Offices

  The fact that they just monetized arguably the most significant discovery in history notwithstanding, this company is rather underwhelming. There are only two offices in this section, those belonging to the Doctors: Richard Phoenix and Lewis Deleon. Granted, the building is full of techs running tests and collating data, but you get the feeling that this project is severely undermanned.

  As you can see from the glass façades, one office is occupied and the other is empty. The larger houses Dr. Phoenix, who stands behind a cluttered desk and shouts into his office telephone. Where does your mop take you?

  • The main office. Doc Phoenix must be Mr. Bossman, so he’ll probably have whatever info I need. Plus, I can overhear whatever it is he’s saying. Waste not another minute!

  • Deleon’s office. He’s away, so it’ll be easier for me to snoop through his stuff.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Stairway to Hell

  “Window,” you say, moving over to remove the boards from atop it. With each wooden plank removed, a brilliant ray of fresh sunlight ent
ers; something you’ve not seen for a month.

  As you pry apart your carefully assembled barrier, Deleon speaks into his recorder one last time: “So, if you find this, good luck. And help yourself to what’s left in the cupboard.” He pops the tape out of his handheld, then inserts it into a desk recorder on a table with a note, “Listen to me.” After claiming a new blank tape, Deleon turns to you and nods. It’s time to head out. You’ve got your hammer, he’s got his club.

  You open the window, a burst of cool air comes in, refreshing and crisp against your face. Then the stench registers. The fire escape is one of the old-fashioned wrought-iron staircases with a deployable ladder. From your perch on the fourth floor, you can see that the world outside is completely devastated. The cityscape is bathed in evidence of a former chaos—now smoldering and calm. Flipped cars. Ammo casings adorn the street. Windows broken. Blood stains. Eerie silence. Motionless, save for tatters flapping in the wind.

  There’re no zombies immediately visible in the streets below. It’s possible they were all destroyed, but that’s doubtful. The ghouls must have moved on in search of other prey, but there’s most likely pockets still lurking within the city. No sign of living humans either.

  The ladder screeches down with a maddening howl. If there are undead nearby, they’re on their way now. Best get moving. Down the escape and onto the concrete below, you see a crashed fire engine around the corner of the building. This accident is surely the source of the lost power to Deleon’s apartment.

  On the ground rests a fireman’s axe; long, red, and heavy. The axe head is encrusted with dried blood so thick it’s almost black. You pick up the weapon. It was designed to break down doors, which means a zombie skull shouldn’t be a problem.

  “Where to?” you ask, handing off the hammer to the doctor.

  “We need to find some niacin,” he replies. “It’s not uncommon, but I need a lot of it. So a supermarket with a pharmacy or a hospital is probably our best bet. What do you think?”

  • “Hospital. The supermarket’s probably been raided already.”

  • “Supermarket. Hospitals scare me; especially when the sick try to eat you.”

  • “Why not just a local drugstore?”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Stand and Fight

  This is it. You’re tired but fueled by adrenaline, afraid yet furious. Too long have you been the victim; it’s time to take matters into your own hands. You’ve done nothing but run since this great calamity, and that ends now.

  “Form a line!” you shout, barely recognizing the intensity in your own voice. “They can only come through in twos and threes, so make your kills count and then recover at the end of the line!”

  Cooper looks at you with fierce eyes, the kind she uses when she thinks her authority is being questioned. “You’re up, boss!” You say to her. “Show us how it’s done.”

  She lets out her homemade flail, the business end clinking against the linoleum floor. It’s fashioned from a section of climbing rope, with a bundle of crampons and sharp mountaineering implements on the other side. She swings the thing around, the rope stretching from the weight at the dangerous end, and with full-body momentum connects the spike bundle to the first zombie’s head. The blow sticks in and connects with such power that it lifts the ghoul off its feet. As the body slams against a sale rack, Cooper has her crowbar out and engages the second zombie, slamming the straight end through an eye socket.

  As she holds her boot against the twice-dead corpse’s neck to wrench her crowbar free, a new batch of zombies flows in. Guillermo runs forward with his shovel and nearly decapitates the first one, the head dropping back to barely hang from a tendon. Flipping the weapon around, he further pops this fiend in the chest, sending it the ground. With two more expertly placed blows to the foreheads of the victims, the pair of undead collapses. He finishes the first off, then calmly walks to the back of the line.

  The glass in the entry breaks further, and now the zombies enter the store four abreast. Without a cue, Tyberius and Hefty move forward together. Hefty looses arrows with absurd accuracy, the strong hunting bow easily puncturing skulls at the forehead, but reload speed does pose a problem. That’s where Tyberius comes in. He’s got his tiny dumbbells at the ready and swings them with enough stopping power to put bone fragment into soft brain. He’s deadly with the things.

  A moan comes at you from the side. The undead have breached the service entrance and already a dozen are rushing toward you. “Newbie, Doc, come with me!” Sims shouts. Then to the other group members, “You guys cover this entrance.”

  Deleon rushes in and connects his pickaxe to the head of the lead ghoul. He peels the thing’s arms off him as it falls to the ground. You deal real damage with your axe, slamming a skull with a leftward blow using the bladed side, then reversing and burying the pike end in a fiend on your right. And yet, it’s not enough.

  The fire outside must be drawing them in from all over the city, where they fall in line toward the store like craven lemmings. Sims flings a shot with his slingshot, but it’s a miss. He tries again and gets very, very close… but still misses. In frustration, he unsheathes the sword he’s sharpened and rushes in to attack.

  He gets a kill, but the replica shatters upon impact, leaving him weaponless. Two zombies grapple him, and you and the doctor double back to help him out. You kill the undead attackers, but not before Sims screams out under the pressure of a bite.

  “I hope you’ve got more of that cure, Doc!” he says, forcing pressure on the bite wound on his neck. Deleon merely grimaces and the three of you are forced closer and closer to the front entrance.

  “Could use some help here!” you shout.

  “Where’s the fallback position?” Deleon asks.

  “You’re standing on it, asshole. So man up,” Hefty says, loosing an arrow into a zombie behind the doctor.

  Sims staggers backward, leans against a shelving unit, then slowly sits down. “I just need a minute,” he says. Blood pours down over his knuckles, trickling in thick streams down his forearm. Guillermo pants heavily, his arms at their limit from thrashing the shovel with enough power to deal a killing blow. Combined with the blade dulling after each kill, his effectiveness is sharply dropping off. His next swing only batters the zombie away, peeling off some of its scalp.

  Hefty runs out of arrows and turns to his machete. His arms are fresh, unlike Cooper, who has taken her muscles to their limit with the crowbar. You’re feeling the strain with your axe as well. Everyone’s just getting exhausted, and yet the flow of undead is relentless.

  Sims loses consciousness. A zombie that was only wounded grabs Tyberius around the legs and trips him down from the floor. The gang frees him from the ghoul, but with each setback like this, the horde comes closer.

  Then it happens all at once. There’re five zombies for each human, and the numbers don’t add up to your favor. Deleon goes down with a terrible scream, and everyone’s too preoccupied to help. But that adds one more zombie for the rest of you to deal with while taking away a good fighter.

  Then Cooper is taken, unable to effectively combat so many foes with merely a crowbar. A zombie whose bony, fragmented fingers have been sharpened to points reaches into her abdomen and rips her innards out, spilling them to the floor in a sickening display of violence.

  You swing the aluminum bat with frenzy, and it’s effective, but not enough—you can’t save everyone. Even as Tyberius slaughters the ghouls, they engulf him. It’s like trying to punch away a tidal wave—even though he’s an effective fighter, there are others he can’t get to. He goes down hard, unable to fight them off from the floor. The building is swarming now, and you don’t even have room to walk.

  Next you lose Guillermo. A gargantuan body builder of a zombie bursts in from the front and knocks the shovel out of his hands before actually picking him up to eat him. The man doesn’t have a chance.

  Then there were two; it’s just you and Hefty, and now you have to fig
ht a dozen zombies each. It’s impossible, there are too many of them. Hefty shoots through the open mouth of one of the fiends, the arrow continuing right through the back of her neck, not stopping her assault. A dozen bloody hands—whose blood you couldn’t say—grab onto him and pull him apart as they force him to the ground.

  You hear his screams just as you let out your own. Your arms are all exhausted sinew, taxed to their maximum, but you still swing away with desperation. Even though the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. Very weak. You smash your axe against the head of the nearest ghoul, but with your lack of strength you only succeed in scalping him. He moves in on you, and as the last remaining human, fifty hungry zombies all come in to get a piece as well.

  It was a valiant effort, but a foolhardy one in the end. You took quite a few of them down with you, and you won’t add to their ranks either—there’s enough undead eating you alive that there won’t be anything left to rise again.

  THE END

  Strawberry Fields… Forever

  The first thing you notice is a pungent sweetness. Ripe strawberries advertise themselves with aromas strong enough even for a human nose, and these berries are fat with juice. After a week of tuna kits and saltines, your jaws tingle with the prospect of the sweet tartness held within these fields. You’re salivating.

  You fall to your knees in the dirt and gorge on the fruit. Anyone who’s ever grown strawberries knows there’s a perfect time to eat them, when they’re sweeter and juicier than any supermarket strawberry could ever hope to be. They disintegrate in your mouth and squish between your teeth almost without chewing. The red juice pours out over your chin and stains your face as you stuff your cheeks, but you don’t care. Your fingernails collect crimson as you gorge yourself as fast as you can—every moment is precious these days.